What I'm Watching: ParaNorman

Sure, this is stop-motion animation, and aimed kinda towards the younger crowd.  But it IS a movie about zombies, and also aimed at the horror crowd, so I have zero problem talking about this here!

I *loved* ParaNorman.

Honestly, I'd probably say it's better than Brave, for me, which I also liked quite a lot.  But ParaNorman really resonated with me.  Mainly because of my interests, and the themes they dealt with.

The basic story is about a kid in high school in New England, who can talk to ghosts.  He tries desperately to get through the day, not be noticed, not be made fun of, and just try and survive school when he's seen as a freak.  He also has something of a destiny to deal with, so there's that on top of everything else.

This is something so many people can relate to.  I was one of those outcast kids, I'm sure many people reading this were, and there are moments where this movie really goes for the gut, and speaks to that part of me, even though it was a long time ago that I had to deal with any of that shit.

While watching the movie, I almost instantly thought, "Wow, this looks so much like my hometown!" and lo and behold, it did turn out to be set in New England, as evidenced by the talk of pilgrims, the Mayflower, and witches.  But it got even better when it turns out they actually did some location scouting for inspiration in Salem, Massachusetts and other New England areas, so yeah!  It pretty much was my hometown!  I'll admit this helped endear the movie to me that much more.  But I loved the movie before knowing that for certain.

The story is set up wonderfully, and humourously, and really books along at quite a good pace.  The stpp motion is just...amazing.  We have come so fat with this sort of stuff, that you forget it's puppets being moved at a fraction of a second at a time, and I swore this was CGI for the longest time!

I will say, I wasn't quite in love with the movie for the first half of the movie, which isn't to say it was bad.  It was great, but just kinda doing good stuff that wasn't really latching onto me.  But once the second half kicked in, once things got turned on their head, I instantly went from really liking to loving this movie.  Quite a few unexpected turns that make the movie something special, a great message or two for kids trying to deal with their own damage in school, and a great wrap up really made for a great film.

There are SO many nice little nods in this movie for the long-time horror fan.  My personal favourite is, naturally, a certain hockey mask. ;)  I'll leave the rest for y'all to find on your own.

ParaNorman doesn't shy away from the scares for the kids, which is SO SO damned refreshing.  This doesn't try to be clean and sanitised.  It's very much got a little Grimm Fairy Tales in its storytelling DNA.  And like all good family movies, it is good for kids and adults alike, as I can atest to.

If you're a horror fan, I would say this is a must-see, or just an animation fan, or just a fan of good, family movies that don't talk down to you.

ParaNorman is easily in my top ten for 2012.

J

What I'm Watching: Chillerama

I am SO sorry I have been WAY too lazy with these posts lately.  I've got a lot to catch up on, and for the time being, I'll be doing a bunch of these seperately, because a single post would just be too huge at this point.  The good news for you, fellow Philes, is that this means a lot of content in the next month!  The bad news is, they're movies that are long gone in some cases.

I was going to do this movie in its own post anyways, since it is two hours long, which isn't so special, but it is also four seperate stories in an anthology format, and each one really does deserve to be talked about.

First up though, overall, I really, trult LOVED Chillerama.  This movie is done in exactly the same spirit as this very site.  The anthology is a send up, and yet lovingly embraces, all the tropes of cheesy horror movies from the 60s-80s.  This was one of the single most enjoyable experiences in this genre in a long time.  Some of my friends will tell you I wouldn't shut up about this thing.

But it is not without problems.  Let's dive into each of the four segments, starting with Wadzilla.

After the movie starts off with a great wrapping story set in a drive in set to be closed down and paved over, they start playing Wadzilla, a hilariously disgusting sendup of 1950s radioactive monster movies.  Starring a sentient sperm going crazy.

My biggest problem here is the sheer disgustingness.  Now, I have no problem with disgusting content.  I *have* watched Human Centipede, after all.  But the copious use of fake sperm and semen did get to me after awhile.  But aside from that, the short is decent.  The humour is good, the style is spot on, and I especially love the extra work they did to add grain and make the colour wrong, like an old, poorly made movie.  They even did terribly horrible garbage mattes around people for cheap rotoscoping.  A spot on homage to the style and storytelling of this sort of movie.  Just a bit on the icky side.

Next up after a return to the drive in, is I Was a Teenage Werebear.  You can guess what this is sending up.  But it also takes from that same era, musicals.  Yes, a musical horror story.  Which isn't unheard of, but can be tough to pull off, and in all honesty, I don't think this one quite managed to do it either.  The story was okay, but the music got in the way.  However, I loved the music!  The songs were catchy, I *still* find myself humming them, it's just the two didn't quite mesh together for a solid whole.  Good, but not a home run.

Third on the all-night marathon was, quite frankly, the best of the four; The Diary of Anne Frankenstein.  OH my gods.  Such a brilliantly simple pun idea, and it even works to say that the Frankenstein family changed their name to Frank.  But the setup is incidental to the utter insanity here.  The story is done all in *ahem* German.  Except for Hitler.  He kinda speaks German, and it starts out that you THINK he's speaking real German, but as things go on and on, and things get increasingly insane, you realise the actor is just making shit up.  Most notably once his commands become Star Wars characters.  Definitely not German.  This seems like it might be an insanely offensive idea, and there are some cringey moments, but it is just SO over the top, so crazy, and mocks Hitler so much, that it somehow sidesteps all the potential controversy.  Brilliant.

Before the final story, it is worth noting that they tried to do a fake out with a fourth movie done in one of those arty horror films, with just piles of shit being flung around, and it made me cringe almost more than Wadzilla.  I'm glad it wasn't the actual fourth movie.

Instead, we return to the wrapping story at the drive-in, and it becomes a full on homage to zombie movies, appropriately called Zom-B-Movie.  The whole wrapper was a great, loving nod to the old drive in culture, which is sadly almost disappeared now.  There is some great nods to Orson Welles and how movies have changed from being just popcorn entertainment to be shamelessly enjoyed, to money making machines, and an awesome scene with the owner of the drive in hitting rock bottom and almost comitting suicide, but then manning up, and arming up, to take down the zombie horde.  He spouts SO many classic lines from horror and other genre flicks, that you will surely miss some.  I was practically on my feet cheering.  And much like Wadzilla's style, while this section of the anthology was mostly filmed to look 'real', once someone in the movie realised that they were living a movie, there was a jump in the frames, and the film became grainier, and more theatrical, less real.  So very meta, much like the entire Zom-B-Movie segment, which I loved and appreciated.  It was a great way to tie the anthology together, and wrap things up, making it more than just those interstitial segments.

So overall, Chillerama gets a HUGE recommendation from me.  This was pure enjoyment, and anyone who is a fan of the movies on this site, should watch it.  It made me so nostalgic for those sorts of movies, and the drive in, which was always an experience I did not get to partake in enough.  There's a few bits that don't quite work, but in a two hour movie, a few minutes of stumbling is not bad at all.

I eagerly await and hope there's a sequel someday.

J